36 Best Hotel Marketing Tools (All Free or Budget-Friendly)
What are the best marketing tools for a hospitality business? After a decade spent on and off-property in the hotel industry, I’ve tried just about every type of hotel marketing software.
Truth be told, the most expensive and complicated tools were rarely the best.
How much time do you spend manually tracking search keywords or posting social content during off-hours? Are you stressing over your hotel website design or need help writing captions or Google ads?
Or maybe you just feel stuck, with no clue what content to create — while your F&B Director is wondering out loud why you haven’t shared anything about the new brunch menu yet. Sigh.
In my experience creating marketing strategies for hotels and resorts, having the right tools on hand helps me work more efficiently and deliver results.
So, what are the best hotel marketing tools?
This list contains my tried-and-true, all-time favorites. Any of these would make a great addition to your hotel marketing toolbox — and best of all, they’re either FREE or very budget-friendly.
*Heads up, this post contains links to products or services I recommend, which I may get commission from.
Hotel marketing tools for research and inspiration
1. Pinterest
There are just so many social media marketing platforms to manage in the hospitality industry. Pinterest was impressive when it burst onto the scene in 2012 but, over time, pinning just fell further and further down most marketers’ list of priorities.
That said, I think we need to stop sleeping on Pinterest! Stop thinking of it as yet another social media platform, but as a valuable resource for hotel content ideas and inspiration.
Head to Pinterest right now, type in “[your destination] + ideas” and see what content comes up.
What are the most popular pins? What other search terms are suggested along the top of your screen? This exercise should get your creative juices flowing.
Pinterest also puts out a robust annual trend report and 2020’s is seriously packed with info that’s actually very relevant to hoteliers. I noticed an uptick in interest in sustainability, staycations, nature travel, cooking classes and even internationally-inspired interior design.
2. Buzzsumo
In the hotel business, hyper-relevant content is key to direct bookings. Buzzsumo is one of the best ways to get a feel for what topics are trending related to your destination.
It’s also pretty straightforward to use.
Head to Buzzsumo now and try inputting a phrase or keyword. Hit the Search button and the tool will show you the most popular content related to that term, listed by social shares.
You can also try inputting a domain — your competitor’s website, perhaps — to see which pages from their website have been shared on social media the most. This is a pretty useful trick to finding out what’s working for them.
Another useful feature is Buzzsumo’s “Evergreen Score.”
Content that is “evergreen” is super relevant, year round. It’s not time-sensitive, like a guide to a one-time music festival or winter travel tips.
After searching a keyword on Buzzsumo, filter the columns by the Evergreen Score to see what content has the longest shelf life. Content with a high Evergreen Score would be smart to create for your own website. Just make sure you’re expanding on what’s already out there, adding more detail and more value for your guests!
3. Answer The Public
If you start typing a query into Google’s search bar, you’ll see some suggestions populate below. A similar list of suggestions also appears at the bottom of most search result pages.
Google’s autocomplete feature is very useful for generating content ideas, but the process of finding lots of suggestions in bulk can be a bit manual.
Answer The Public is basically Google’s autocomplete results… amplified by a few thousand.
All you need to do is type in your topic (for example, “key west”) and all the related search data is visualized for you in seconds. You’ll find all the different variations of that keyword, displayed in the form of interactive diagrams.
The results are grouped by questions (ex. what hotels in key west are on the beach) and comparisons (ex. key west or key largo).
Answer The Public is a great way to learn how your customers discover your destination.
What questions are they asking? What specific points of interest are they looking for? Are they comparing your destination to another? We can use this intel to build a strategic content marketing plan for your hotel.
READ NEXT: 101 Content Ideas For Your Next Hotel Blog or Social Post
Best hotel email marketing service providers (budget friendly!)
4. Mailchimp
(I’ll keep this section somewhat brief, as I go into a lot more detail on my favorite email marketing providers for hotels in another post, including which Hotel CRM I believe is best for email marketing automation.)
Over the years, I’ve dabbled in all sorts of email providers, including some larger Enterprise solutions thrust upon me by head offices. Some of these were great! Others… phew, not so much.
What I want to do here is recommend solutions that are effective, but simple enough for an independent hotel property to implement on their own.
Hotels new to email marketing may want to stick to a more basic tool like Mailchimp.
Again, I weigh a few more pros and cons of using Mailchimp for hotels in another post. But really, it’s the simplest and cheapest option for e-mail marketing — as long as you don’t need or want a ton of bells and whistles.
5. MailerLite
Once you’ve grown a larger subscriber list or want to start implementing more advanced automation, MailerLite* is a great choice for hotel email marketing.
Sign up for MailerLite here* and start your free 30-day trial.
MailerLite’s paid plans include features like:
Unlimited monthly emails
Unlimited use of email marketing templates
Mobile responsive designs
Drag-and-drop editor
Built-in AI email writing assistant
Email marketing automation builder
Subscriber tagging
If you don’t want the hassle of moving your list from a free Mailchimp plan, MailerLite’s free demo plan* is still a great place to start.
Once you start growing your email list, it’s worth paying for more powerful email marketing features like automated email sequences and useful integrations with other digital marketing tools.
MailerLite’s paid plans* start at just $10 USD a month — and include a lot of great features hoteliers need to nail their email marketing strategy.
I’m talking about fully customizable forms, integration with most website builders, drag-and-drop campaign templates, unlimited email sends, robust user segmentation, and many more valuable email marketing features.
And the new AI-powered writing assistant tool? Very useful.
Sign up for MailerLite here* and start your free 30-day trial.
Hotel SEO tools that give your organic search results a boost
6. Semrush Keyword MAgic Tool
I mentioned a few different free or low-cost keyword tools for hotels in another post, but Keyword Magic by Semrush* is a great one.
Using the (limited) free version, hotels can run 10 searches a day 10 and view 10 results — a great start to your keyword research efforts.
Good content marketing involves actually tracking and analyzing your keywords, which is pretty tough to do manually. If you’re serious about DIY-ing your hotel content marketing, I highly recommend investing in a paid plan.
Semrush* has everything you need to monitor your search engine performance, analyze how your competition stacks up, find new keyword opportunities, improve the content you’ve already published, and so much more.
Another thing I love about Semrush is their helpful and robust knowledge base. It’s full of tips and tutorials on how to utilize their free and paid features — kind of like my own hotel marketing resources blog.
As far as an all-in-one option goes, Semrush* is one of my favorite SEO tools for hotels.
7. Ahrefs Site Explorer
While similar in concept to Semrush, what I like most about Ahrefs is their free Site Explorer tool.
Marketers can use Ahrefs Site Explorer to see exactly which keywords your competitors rank for — and how much traffic each keyword brings them. Sounds a little sneaky, I know, but this is some seriously valuable intel.
Why? Simply put, the results can indicate areas of opportunity for you. We talk about our comp set’s rates and occupancy in order to find a revenue strategy that works for us. Analyzing their content is no different.
I suggest using Ahrefs Site Explorer to get a sense of what your potential guests really need.
Is the other hotel’s guide to a certain local festival ranking well and driving them a lot of traffic? That should tell you there’s an opportunity to provide potential guests with even more information — it’s time to create or update a similar page. Just make sure it’s packed with more value than your competitors!
8. Free Hotel SEO Checklist
Keeping a checklist handy is by far the best way to make sure you’re optimizing your pages for search.
SEO for hotels is, well, kinda my whole “thing” so I went ahead and created exactly this!
The guide is completely free and now includes a bonus resource with even more free or low-cost SEO tools to help you rule the rankings. Get your free hotel SEO checklist here or click the banner below. ⤵
9. Yoast
Moving right along, one of the most popular hotel SEO tools is actually a Wordpress plugin called Yoast.
If your hotel website design runs on Wordpress, chances are, you already have Yoast. It’s one of the most popular plugins! If you update your own website content, you’ll see Yoast appearing on the page editor or in the left-hand side navigation.
What I and so many others like about Yoast is how simple it is to use.
All you need to do is pop in your keyword and Yoast guides you through optimizing the page, step-by-step.
The downside with Yoast is that it’s only for Wordpress — and it’s not free. (Sad face.)
The main reason I’m mentioning it is that many web developers choose to include it in their website build from the get-go. It’s definitely something to ask for if you’re just starting the process of designing a new hotel website.
If you already have a Wordpress site, it’s worth logging into your dashboard to see if you have Yoast installed.
10. RankMath
A new-to-me Yoast alternative for hotels is RankMath.
It’s also a WordPress plugin and it has many similar features to Yoast, including fully customizable modules — this makes RankMath way easier, in my opinion, because you can select the features you understand and are most comfortable using.
I also prefer RankMath’s interface over Yoast, personally, as I feel it’s cleaner and more user-friendly.
If you’re a little more advanced with hotel SEO, you’ll really like the Rich Snippets and built-in Schema generator.
11. KeySearch
If you’re just dabbling in SEO or trying to get ideas, free tools like the ones I’ve mentioned above will be fine. I’m not a believer in spending tons of money on software, especially when there are so many free or low-cost alternatives!
But I will say, when you’re ready to start actively tracking results from search over time, or need a more robust solution for finding new keyword opportunities and optimizing old content, you really do need to upgrade to a paid product.
To unlock these and other valuable features, both Semrush and Ahrefs offer paid plans, but they don’t come cheap. And personally, I’ve found both to have a bit of a learning curve.
After quite a bit of trial and experimentation over the years, my favorite affordable keyword tool for hotels is KeySearch*.
Sign up for KeySearch here* and get 20% off with coupon code KSDISC.
At $17 a month for the Starter plan, the price is right for a small business like mine — or you can use promo code KSDISC for an extra 20% off, making it less than $14 a month!
The most basic paid plan on KeySearch* gives you all of the following:
Keyword research and opportunities
Rank tracking
Competitive analysis
Content assistance
Saved lists
SERP analysis
I could go on… If you’re ready to set your hotel up for SEO success with an affordable keyword research tool, KeySearch* is my recommendation.
Sign up for KeySearch here* and get 20% off with coupon code KSDISC.
Marketing tools that help hoteliers plan and organize content
12. Google Calendar
The tools you choose to keep in your hotel marketing toolbox don’t need to be expensive or complicated.
Google Calendar is free and easy to use — why reinvent the wheel if you don’t need to?
Depending on your needs, you might already use Google Calendar to keep track of personal appointments or meetings. But did you know it also works well as a content planning tool?
To do this, I recommend starting fresh with a new calendar, perhaps leaving only the “Holidays in [Your Country]” feature turned on. If you’re like me and love to color-code, go ahead and create separate calendars for each of your content topics.
These separate calendars are your hotel content pillars. Content pillars are the key topics that appeal most to your target guest — your content should rotate between these topics for variety. Learn more about how hotels can use content pillars here.
Now you can start adding “events” to your Google Calendar. Create an event entry, set the duration to “All Day” and drop it onto the calendar. Drag and drop different posts as you see fit. Remember: variety is good, so if you plan to share a lot of F&B content, try to mix in some local recommendations or meeting-planning tips as well.
And that’s really it! Now you have a simple visual laying out your content plan for the month.
13. Evernote
Using Evernote to create a content calendar is a little more advanced than Google Calendar, but still effective. They’ve actually created a full guide to using Evernote for social planning here, which I recommend checking out.
The number one reason I like Evernote as a content planning tool is that it’s cloud-based.
Everything you type into Evernote on your desktop syncs with their mobile app, making it one of the easiest content planning tools to use on-the-go.
I also suggest following Evernote’s advice and keeping a media asset library in the tool. That way you can easily drag-and-drop larger media files from your desktop, and grab them in the mobile app to post.
No more emailing or texting yourself random hotel images! Hooray!
As with Google Calendar, Evernote doesn’t actually publish your content. But for a hotel on a budget, it’s an effective solution for organizing your content plan.
14. Asana
Want to take your hotel’s content planning up yet another notch? Allow me to introduce Asana.
Asana is a web-based project management system, designed to help teams collaborate on a wide range of projects. It can be used to plan campaigns, compile research, take notes, make to-do lists, create outlines, and so much more.
If you have multiple team members contributing to your content calendar, Asana could be the perfect collaboration marketing tool for your hotel.
Best of all, their basic plan is totally free! If you want to add multiple team members, Asana’s next tiered pricing plan starts at just $11 USD a month.
Asana provides tons of helpful resources to get you started. Check out Asana’s guide to setting up your content calendar or simply grab a copy of their free editorial calendar template.
Free writing tools for hotels and hospitality businesses
15. Grammarly
Even the most seasoned writers make mistakes from time to time. Grammarly* is your standard spell check on steroids.
To be more specific, Grammarly is a powerful, AI-driven writing assistant that finds errors in spelling, grammar, style, and tone.
You can use the native desktop app or Google Chrome browser extension. Either way, Grammarly works on email, social media, word processors, and any other text box you can think of.
Sounds amazing, right? Alas, there’s a catch.
At the moment, Grammarly* only supports the English language.
While that’s a missed opportunity for many, this AI writing tool is still incredibly useful for native and non-native English speakers alike. It even recognizes subtle differences between American, British, Canadian, and Australian English.
16. Hemingway
One of my all-time favorite marketing tools for hotels is Hemingway. It’s another free writing tool that you’ll definitely want to add to your bookmarks bar right now.
It’s kind of like having your very own copy editor on speed dial. Type or paste any amount of text into the Hemingway Editor to see what I mean.
The tool highlights complex sentences and common errors that can make your writing harder to read. Hemingway offers suggestions to help you avoid passive voice, tighten up long-winded text, and find simpler alternatives to complex words.
Why is this so useful?
Studies show that the average American adult reads at or just below an eighth-grade level. One of the keys to good hotel copywriting is readability.
Don’t mistake a higher reading level for better copy!
For what it’s worth, this post is currently clocking in at a seventh grade reading level. For most of my hotel copywriting projects, I find the sweet spot is usually between Grades 6-8.
The last thing I’ll add about Hemingway is this: Practice makes perfect. When you use the tool consistently, you’re also training yourself to write content that is clear and concise.
17. CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer
Have you ever heard that the average human attention span is shorter than that of a goldfish? Microsoft even published a study around it.
I’m honestly impressed you’re still reading this article!
Our social media feeds, email inboxes, and browser tabs are more cluttered than ever — it’s pretty hard to break through the noise.
Whether it’s an email subject line, blog title, Google ads or social media captions, a strong, effective headline can make or break your content. That’s why I love using CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer.
Headline Analyzer helps you improve the quality of your headline with their simple scoring system. The tool offers suggestions for balancing common and uncommon words, as well as finding the optimal word or character count.
It’ll cost you your email address, but I swear this is a tool you’ll come back to time and time again.
The best hotel social media management tools and software
18. Later
In the early days of Instagram, many marketers struggled with the fact that we couldn’t schedule posts to publish automatically on the platform. Um, work-life boundaries much?
One of the first tools that tried to solve this problem was Latergramme — now known as Later.
Later is an all-in-one Instagram planner, scheduler, and publisher. It’s also the perfect complement to Buffer since it’s focused mostly designed for Instagram and that’s where Buffer is lacking.
(It does let you publish to other platforms, though, including Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.)
One of Later’s best features is the ability to publish directly to Instagram, so there’s no longer a need to open a push notification on your phone and publish manually.
Later also allows Instagram Stories scheduling (paid plan feature). AND you can even schedule the first comment on an Instagram post — which is great if you’re someone who prefers to put your hashtags in the first comment instead of in the post caption.
I also looooove the drag-and-drop scheduler. Instagram is a very visual platform, and this lets you plan out a cohesive, aesthetically pleasing profile grid.
Later’s free plan gives you pretty much all you need to manage your hotel’s Instagram account, but the paid plans start at just $12.50 a month.
With its affordability, visual features, and great user experience, I think Later is one of the best social media management tools for hotels.
READ NEXT: The Best Scheduling Tools For Hotel Social Media Management
19. The Hotel Social MEdia Starter Pack
Social media management for a hotel can be a daunting task. (I know, because I’ve been in your position!)
That’s why I created the Hotel Social Media Starter Pack to solve this very challenge. This nifty bundle contains everything you need to kickstart your hotel’s social media strategy from the ground up.
Your first 90 days of content? Check.
Your own customizable calendar to plan posts and promotions? Check.
Your first giveaway or competition T&Cs, written and ready to go? Check!
It’s the quickest and easiest resource for social content planning. Grab yours below.
The best stock photo, video, and media resources for hotels
20. Unsplash
Finding good quality stock photos used to be a real pain in the you-know-what. As a whole, it’s common knowledge that stock photography is… not great. (In fact, some stock photos are so bad they’ve inspired their own memes!)
That’s why I always go to Unsplash.
Unsplash is my go-to resource for beautiful, free stock photos. Need a gorgeous workspace flatlay? How about a tight shot of festive cocktails? Chances are, you’ll find all of this and more on Unsplash.
You might be wondering, why would my hotel ever need stock photography? I already pay a professional to take photos of my rooms, meeting spaces, and restaurant…
Thing is, unless you have an amazing photographer on-call or on your team, there’s always a need for more images. There’s not always time or budget to bring in a professional.
Spend a few minutes on Unsplash and you’ll (hopefully) realize that not all stock photography has to suck!
By the way, diversity and inclusion in hotel website imagery — it matters.
I want to take a moment here to highlight a few excellent stock photography resources that feature people of color. Here are three high-quality websites I recommend:
21. TONL
TONL specializes in culturally inclusive stock images.
22. CreateHer
CreateHer offers a collection of stock photos featuring women of color.
23. Nappy
Finally, Nappy has even more diverse stock photography to choose from.
While Unsplash is usually my go-to, here are a few more of the best free stock photography sites for hotels.
All of these offer beautiful, royalty-free images that hotels can use in their content, printed collateral, and more:
24. Foodiesfeed (Great resource for stock food photography)
25. Pexels
26. Burst by Shopify
27. Gratisography
28. Pond5
Video should be a vital piece of your hotel digital marketing strategy. While the sites above will have you covered in terms of images, Pond5 is the place to go for stock video and music.
The average user spends 88% more time on a website with video. And for social? Consumers say that videos are their favorite type of content to see from a brand on social media.
Need a generic beach shot? Or how about a London double-decker bus zipping through Oxford Street beneath twinkling Christmas lights? Seriously, Pond5 has everything.
The clips are not free, but they’re a lot cheaper than hiring your own videographer!
29. TinyJPG
In my post about what every hotel website needs to have, I explained that image size really impacts your page load speed. There’s way more detail in that post, but this next tool is a bit of a shortcut.
TinyJPG is a free website that compresses and optimizes your images for you. No Photoshop required.
Simply upload the image and within moments, the file size is reduced by up to 90% — all while retaining the image quality!
I use TinyJPG for all of the images you see here on my website and blog. Can you tell? I’ve noticed a huge difference in my site’s performance since I started doing this.
30. PINGDOM Speed Test
This one is also NOT a stock photo site, but it is a useful media resource — especially when used with TinyJPG.
As I said earlier, your hotel website needs to load quickly and media elements tend to slow it down. If you’ve taken the time to go through and compress your images, it’s a good idea to test your site speed before and after.
Pingdom is a free page speed tool that lets you do just that.
READ NEXT: What Features Do You Really Need On Your Hotel Website?
Affordable creative & graphic design tools for hotel marketers
31. Coolors.co
This is a fun one! If you’ve ever felt stuck while creating a new color scheme or simply want to keep your exact brand shades handy, you need to try Coolors.co.
Coolors.co is a super-simple color scheme generator.
Use the desktop site or iOS app to quickly create appealing palettes based on your brand colors. You can even pull an exact shade from a photo.
The best part is, once you’ve created a palette, you can save it and refer back to it! This makes restaurant or hotel branding an absolute breeze.
32. Canva
Unless you’re new here (in which case, hi, welcome!), you’ve seen me talk about Canva before.
Canva is my absolute favorite free alternative to Photoshop. In fact, I cancelled my Adobe subscription last year because I never used Photoshop anymore!
Canva is the easiest way to design beautiful graphics for social media, elevate creative presentations or printed collateral, and so much more.
Hotels can get a lot of mileage using just the free version. If you’re needing an even more powerful design tool, upgrading to Canva Pro* might make sense.
Canva Pro* lets you collaborate on projects with multiple team members, save color palettes and branding elements, access thousands more fonts, create gifs and animations, and so much more.
*Heads up, this post contains links to products or services I recommend, which I may get commission from.
33. Creative Market
Oh man, Creative Market is an absolute gold mine for marketers—and I don’t know anyone in hotels using it!
Creative Market* is a one-stop-shop for all sorts of graphic design needs.
You can purchase affordable, professionally designed, pre-made templates like social media graphics, slide decks, icons, styled stock images, fonts, pre-built website themes, and so much more.
Real talk: I’m not great with design. 😅 Visuals, branding, and Instagram aesthetics are so not my cup of tea.
But running a business requires graphics.
I’ve used Creative Market* for a number of my own projects, from sourcing styled stock photos for my blog to finding the perfect, ready-made slideshow template to use for my video trainings and online courses.
They also send out FREE design goodies every week, like fonts and graphics bundles. Honestly, it’s worth making an account just to get your paws on those!
Just take a look at this week’s free goods below. ⤵
Powered by Creative Market
*Heads up, this post contains links to products or services I recommend, which I may get commission from.
34. Issuu
Another powerful design resource for hotels is Issuu.
Issuu is another possible replacement for Adobe InDesign or Publisher if you’re unable to invest in that suite of tools.
Use it to create stunning, visual brochures, magazines, presentations, and other collateral — all of which can be sent off to your printer or distributed fully online.
I think Issuu is particularly great for hotels needing to create and share gorgeous wedding, events, and meeting materials. Your sales team will thank you!
Even better, Issuu has both free and paid versions, depending on your needs and budget.
Best free productivity and time management tools for hoteliers
35. Tomato Timer
As a small business owner and freelancer, I cannot shout about the Pomodoro® Technique enough. I use the Tomato Timer every day.
But wait, back up, what is the Pomodoro® Technique and how do you use the Tomato Timer?
The technique itself is simply a time management method where work is broken down into 25-minute intervals, each followed by a short break.
Instead of eyeing the clock, I use the Tomato Timer to alert me whenever the 25 minutes are up. I set it and forget it, focusing fully on the task at hand until the little buzzer sounds off.
Personally, if I feel like my work is really flowing, I’ll reset the timer and do another 25-minute sprint before taking a quick break. To each their own!
Whether you work from home, in a cubicle, open-plan office, hot desk, cafe or coworking space, staying focused can be a challenge. We have a lot of stimuli between social media app notifications, other hotel departments dropping in with requests, emails, water cooler conversations, etc.
Next time you want to really focus on a task, give the Tomato Timer a try!
36. Zapier
All of our hotel marketing campaigns require multiple tools and resources to execute. Wouldn't it be nice if they all "talked" to each other? 🤝
Imagine you’re collaborating with several team members on a new project. What if your email attachments were automatically saved in a pre-designated project file folder on Dropbox or Google Drive?
My friends, this is a big one. Zapier is a *holy grail* productivity tool for hotel marketers! Best of all, the Basic version of Zapier is completely free.
Zapier works by connecting thousands of different web-based apps and creating automatic workflows (called “Zaps”) between them.
Some of the most popular apps that work with Zapier include: Microsoft Outlook and Office tools, Gmail, Google Drive, Dropbox, Mailchimp, HubSpot CRM, Wordpress, Squarespace, Typeform, Google Analytics, and literally thousands more.
The possible combinations are endless!
Final Thoughts
Phew, that’s a lot of resources!
Did I miss anything? Is there another category of hotel marketing tools you think I should include? Leave a comment below and let me know what you think!
Like I said at the very beginning, the best marketing tools for hotels actually don’t have to blow your entire budget. I share all sorts of hotel marketing strategies and resources right here on the blog.
Don’t forget to grab your FREE copy of the hotel SEO checklist here or below! ⤵
*Heads up, this post contains affiliate links. If you decide to make a purchase using my link, I’ll get a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products and tools that I use and love. Thanks for supporting my business—and iced coffee habit.
WHAT TO READ NEXT:
How To Build Your Hotel Marketing Plan, Step By Step (+ Free Template!)
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Updated: June 2023